International Economics junior wins first round of PioBiz

by Tom Perry

Marietta, Ohio (10/22/2018) — Marietta College student Yuhang Liu '20 (Beijing, China) recently took top honors in the first round of the PioBiz - the Problem-Solution phase - for her idea "iTown."

The International Economics student - who presented one of 13 ideas during the competition - won $140.

PioBiz is a business start-up competition with a final award of up to $10,000 in the third round in April. The competition is open to all Marietta College students and their business partners. Throughout the 2018-19 academic year, students can compete in three rounds of competition.

During the first round on October 11th, students used up to two slides and took up to two minutes to present a problem and suggest a solution. Each competitor was then given two minutes to respond to questions posed by a panel of three judges.

Upon the conclusion of the last presentation, each member of the audience voted for three of the 13 ideas. Each of the three judges - Michael Bond, Founder of Spoken; Michael Fleak, Vice President of Commercial Lending at Premier Bank; and Tres Ross, Executive Director of The Ross Foundation - also assigned a 0-10 score to each idea. The top 10 ideas were then determined by adding up the judges' scores to the number of votes that each idea had received from the members of the audience.

Rounding out the top 10 from the first round of competition was:

Rebekah Finn '19 (Cincinnati, Ohio), Biochemistry, and Michael Undersander '19 (Alexandria, Virginia), Geology, "Pawsable," $130.
D. Nathan Hanning '20 (Nelsonville, Ohio), Land & Energy Management, and Ellie Puchta '22 (Cincinnati, Ohio), Marketing and Public Relations & Advertising, and Amanda Ludtman, "Full Circle Recycling," $120.
Manning Shaw '20 (Hollywood, South Carolina), Marketing, "Garden Path Plastics," $110.
Jackson McGill '22 (New Market, Maryland), Finance, and Marco Germinaro '22 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), undecided, "Acne Prevention Athletic Chinstraps," $100.
Nick O'Neal '19 (Conroe, Texas), Land & Energy Management, Dan Glock '22 (Gibsonia, Pennsylvania), Management and Marketing, and Caleb Hall '22 (Reno, Ohio), undecided, "Mirror Magic," $90.
Tianhui Cao '21 (Shanghai, China), Marketing and Economics, "Juice Meets Tea," $80.
Danny McCartney '21 (Warren, Ohio), Sport Management, Braeden Wallace '22 (Elkton, Virginia) and Rachel Sivie '22 (Washington, Pennsylvania), Special Education/Elementary Dual Preparation, "KeyKey," $70.
Parker Caretti '21 (Clarington, Ohio), Management, Ian Kouba '21 (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania), Economics, and Katie Rauch '21 (Fleming, Ohio), Sport Management, "Super Brush," $60.
Logan Viet Meier '22 (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), Finance, "Landscape Expert," $50.

Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy back in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers 49 majors and is consistently ranked as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review, as well as one of the nation's best by Forbes.com. Marietta was selected seventh in the nation according to the Brookings Institution's rankings of colleges by their highest value added, regardless of major.

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